News photo puts a familiar face on compassion in a war zone
The wife of a Stryker Brigade officer is deeply moved by sight of a soldier helping an Iraqi child -- and more so when she recognizes him

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By MIKE BARBER, SEATTLE P-I

On Tuesday, as she does every night, Amy Bieger went to her computer to write an e-mail to her husband, Mark, in Iraq. Her eyes moistened when she logged on looking for news and saw a heart-wrenching photo of a U.S. soldier cradling the limp body of a 2-year-old girl wounded in a terrorist attack the day before. The helmeted soldier's face, unseen, is pressed reassuringly into the girl's. He clutches her close to his heart. Bieger could almost hear it beat faster as he ran to save the girl.

"I was just taking it in. It was emotional," she said from her home in DuPont.

Since the soldier's face couldn't be seen, the photo seemed to represent every soldier in Iraq. But Amy Bieger, the Army wife who knew from the lightning bolt insignia on the soldier's sleeve that it was her husband's Fort Lewis-based Stryker Brigade, wondered if she could learn more.

She double-clicked on the photo to magnify it.

"I saw the insignia, then rank, major. Near the girl's blanket you could see the last four letters on a name tag, 'e-g-e-r.' That sealed the deal. I knew it was Mark," she said. "The way he was cradling her, his body language, I knew that was him. That's what he always has done with our three children and any child in need. Heartbreak just went through me," she said.

The compassionate face beneath the helmet is that of Maj. Mark Bieger, 35, who writes home about the children he sees there, how he'd like to reach out to help them, how they remind him of his own children. A 14-year veteran and West Point graduate from Arizona, Mark Bieger is operations officer for Fort Lewis' 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry Regiment of the Stryker Brigade Combat Team. The unit left in October for a yearlong deployment in Iraq.

His battalion, nicknamed "Deuce Four," has felt more than its share of pain since then. "They have been through a lot and lost a lot of incredible guys, but that makes them want to fight harder to give these people peace," Amy Bieger said. Her husband hasn't had a chance to talk much about the little girl he was rushing to save or what happened Monday.

Nor, isolated and busy in Iraq, does he seem to comprehend the national attention his act of tenderness has drawn, she said. "To him the picture represents great sadness because they lost a little girl. He kept saying it was a sad day. I knew it tore him up and not to press him," she said.

Bieger has told his wife in e-mail only that he and others in Mosul responded to a suicide bomber whose car hit a Stryker vehicle while little kids were crowded around it. "He just says he didn't do anything that none of the other guys are doing."

Michael Yon, the freelancer who took the photograph for The Associated Press, told ABC News that Bieger "wanted to get the girl to American surgeons immediately. So Maj. Bieger wrapped the little girl up in the blanket. He was telling soldiers, 'We're moving out.' "

Bieger, whom the photographer saw rescue U.S. troops a week ago, tried to comfort the toddler as he cradled her, stopping every so often to talk to her, Yon said.

American surgeons could not save the girl or another child. The suicide bomber injured 15 people.

In a message on the Stryker Brigade News Web site at www.strykernews.com/, Yon said Stryker soldiers were angry because the terrorist easily could have waited a block or two and attacked only their patrol, leaving the children out of it. The soldiers returned to the neighborhood the next day to ask people what they could do to help and were warmly received, Yon said.

Stryker families who follow the site posted their own reactions:

A woman who signed herself "Stryker sister" said, "I couldn't stop crying. I went to the bathroom and cried and cried like a baby. Just thinking how our soldiers go through this everyday. This photo is imprinted in my mind, and the image is just always flashing b4 me. Thanks Amy Bieger for your soldier for giving love to this little girl in her final moments."

Another, Erin, said:

"I don't know if I have ever been that moved by any photograph, seeing that patch on our soldiers shoulder, knowing that my son wears that same patch, I wanted everyone to know that our soldiers are so much more than just that. The body language of that soldier is so intense -- for lack of a better word and I could feel the pain in that moment across the miles. I don't know how else to describe it, but if that were my child, my grandchild that he was holding, I don't think that I could ask for anything more."

As such national attention mounted Wednesday, Amy Bieger figured she'd better clue in the couple's three sons, ages 4, 9 and 10.

"I wanted them to see the picture and hear an explanation from me before they heard it from someone else," she said.

"It was hard for them to look at because they miss him so much. They weren't surprised. They said, 'Dad's helping everyone.' They look up to him so much."